Innovative advice

Re: “Call to list air pollution on national agenda”, (Business, March 20).

Here’s a suggested product for lessening the amount of pollution in cities and towns. It’s a new idea that I call a “Passive Solar Relief Tube” (PSRT). It has never been built or tested. When I resided in Chiang Rai, I was prepared to build a prototype using my own limited funds but had to leave the city before the project got beyond the drafting table.

However, I can give an overview description here, and perhaps some Thai innovator can take the ball from there. Find a building with a southern exposure. Place or construct a metal tube that goes up vertically from the ground, at least 15 meters high — the higher, the better. The tube should be between 30 to 100cm in diameter. Clean 55-gallon drums, open at both ends and secured together into a long tube, would be ideal. The bottom of the tube has a large opening or doesn’t sit flat on the ground in order to allow air to enter. The tube is painted flat black.

The proposed PSRT works, as its name alludes, to “passive solar energy”. In other words, it requires zero electricity, AC or DC, to function as long as some sun’s rays land on it. Doesn’t even need full sun. Air is passively/solar heated inside the tube, which compels it to go upward. New, dirty air enters at ground level, is heated, and exits out the top. The cycle perpetuates as long as the tube is warmed. A “scrubber” could be added, which uses a relatively small amount of water. I picture it turning slowly, like the wheel of an old steamboat.

Part of the wheel, with moist ribbons of cloth, slowly runs through a part of the black tube, and those ribbons are scrubbed with a modest spray on the outside, thereby rinsing out some of the smog particulates into a drain. The wheel would be situated near ground level for ease of maintenance and would not interfere with the overall action of the PSRT. Turning the scrubber wheel could involve a small electric motor, but that could be run by a PV panel. Anyone can pursue this concept.

I wish I could be in Thailand to build some prototypes, but alas, that’s not possible.

KEN ALBERTSEN